The Month of April in 3D printing
Without a doubt it was a busy month in the world of 3D printing. Big companies started spending their money again. This continues to enforce the trend that we’re on a road towards a future of a handful of big 3D printing players.
We also saw the continued rise of crowd funding projects in the world of 3D printing and as often happens… more new 3D printers for us to get our hands on. Let’s have a look at the news items in detail…
First, the business news… It seems that 3D Systems got back into its spending habit of last year by acquiring My Robot Nation and Paramount Industries. Could it be the beginning of another spending spree this year? Only time will tell… On the other hand, they also got to present the new Z Printer 850. It promises higher print volume, greater productivity and vibrant full color that empowers designers, engineers, and architects to create more and larger parts faster.
The New Z Printer 850 by 3D Systems
At the same time we can’t really say that the other 3D Printing giant called Stratasys has been quiet. They recently announced the merger with the Israeli 3D printing company Objet and saw their stock value rise from $34 on April to $51 around the time this is being written. This an increase of a third! So for all you guys out there that want to earn some fast money, this is how you can. It might also be interested to mention that Stratasys is clearly up to something big as they have a countdown timer on their main website with the message “The magic begins on May 8. Check back to see what’s new in the world of 3D printing.” I wonder what they’ve got up their sleeve?
Then, onto another 3D printer that recently went on sale… the world famous chocolate printer by Choc Edge. It’s still a bit on the pricey side for me, but for the true chocolate lover it’s a nice investment. On a side note, we also had this 3D printer at the Materialise World Conference. I can confirm that the chocolate was indeed still yummy.
A picture from the Materialise World Conference Fashion Show
That brings us to the actual Materialise World Conference itself… It ran from April 18th until April 20th and attracted grand guests such as President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. Materialise itself hosted a wonderful 3D Printed Fashion Show. We’ve extensively covered this event on our blog, facebook, google + and twitter accounts and got to expose the Top 20 of the Hats off to 3D printing Design Challenge.
Another interesting crowd funding project on Indiegogo is one by Anarkik 3D who would like to take their creative solution called Cloud 9 to the next level. They are in search of $120,000, have managed to get $2,900 so far and still have 63 days to go so if Cloud 9 is your cup of tea, show the people at Anarkik 3D some love by supporting their cause.
And then of course there is the crowd funding project of the Scrappies by Ulrich Schwanitz which we featured on our blog. Our friend Ulrich is in search of $1,000 on Indiegogo in the name of uniting the wonderful theme of love and the modern technology of 3D printing. He has passed the halfway mark and has 31 days left. Do you know someone special and would like to give him/her a customized 3D printed gift? Then Ulrich’s project might be something for you.
On our side we brought you a very nice and new pricing model for all laser sintered models that fit within a bounding box of 125cm3. The great thing about it is that half price is guaranteed and it only gets better the more copies you order. Definitely worth a look if you’re interested in a large order of small 3D printed works of art.
At the same time we introduced the ability to turn your polyamide designs into colorful fluffy works of art by adding colored fibers onto your model (we call it adding velvet fur). The results were quite nice and its feel lovely in your hands. We covered it in this blog post.
The many different options from the iPhone covers of KEES
We also saw the launch of KEES, one of our partners. You can order customized 3D printed iPhone covers which was also covered on our blog and where we also offer the ability to add velvet fur as a nice finish. Are your looking for a 3D printpartner for your business, don’t hesitate to contact us or make use of our API.
Another fellow designer PeLi Design started offering his impressive door handle collection that i.materialise 3D prints at izé.
And last but not least, one of our designers got his work shown on WIRED with his 3D Printed Pulsar.
